


Lost Thoughts

by neveralarch



Category: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Gen, Siblings, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: Johannes Cabal woke up on the stone floor of a bare room. It smelled of dirt and mildew, with a faint undertone of something that Johannes easily identified as blood. There was a little light filtering dimly through a slit in the door—just enough to see that the room was indeed as bare as bare could be. Except, of course, for the man lying on the floor next to him.Johannes kicked him.
Relationships: Horst Cabal & Johannes Cabal
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Lost Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/gifts).



> Happy yuletide! This was a lot of fun to write, I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Betaed by the incomparable fascination_ex.

Johannes Cabal woke up on the stone floor of a bare room. It smelled of dirt and mildew, with a faint undertone of something that Johannes easily identified as blood. There was a little light filtering dimly through a slit in the door—just enough to see that the room was indeed as bare as bare could be. Except, of course, for the man lying on the floor next to him.

Johannes kicked him.

"Urgh," groaned the man, rolling away a little and covering his eyes. "Leave me alone."

"No," said Johannes, and kicked him again. Not to any great effect—either Johannes' kicks were relatively weak or the man was relatively tough. For some reason, Johannes couldn't remember any situation to compare this one to. He did, however, have a firm intuition that it was important to establish oneself as a dangerous presence in any novel situation.

"Stop," snapped the man, and caught Johannes' ankle before he could deliver another blow. His hand tightened, grinding Johannes' bones together. Johannes ruthlessly suppressed a yelp of pain and revised his evaluation of their respective dangerous presences.

"Yes, fine, you've made your point," he said, trying and failing to pull away. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Don't go around kicking strangers," said the man, and released him. Johannes' momentum sent him into an awkward sprawl, which he recovered from as elegantly as a cat pretending it hadn't just slid a meter over freshly-waxed floors.

The man, meanwhile, shoved himself up into a sitting position. He was dressed in a fine waistcoat, blue with pink embroidery, somewhat scuffed from his time on the floor. He had a strong chin and dark, wavy hair that fell nearly to his shoulders. He looked like he probably worked out, but mostly so that he could smile flirtatiously at a barmaid as he wiped the sweat from his brow and ordered a post-exertion pint of ale, rather than for any particular interest in the health benefits of exercise.

Johannes didn't like him. Johannes suspected that he didn't like most people—he found in himself an easy contempt for anyone that failed to meet certain high standards—but his dislike for this man felt deeper. Perhaps a jock had killed Johannes' parents, or something of that nature.

The faint smell of blood was coming from the man. Was he injured? Johannes hoped so.

"If you must know," said the man, "my name is Horst. Horst Cabal. And I'm afraid that's all I can remember. Funny, isn't it? I assume I had a whole life before I woke up in a prison cell being kicked by a blond living stick figure, but it's all a blank."

"Strange," said Johannes, determined not to let on that he was in a similar predicament. At least he knew now that he was blond, whatever good that would do him. "Well, my name is Johannes Cabal, and I know exactly who I am and why I'm here."

"Good for you," said Horst, smiling like an utter prat. "We have the same surname! I wonder if it's common. Do you think they've alphabetized their prisoners? Is this the cell for Cabals?"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Johannes and, with a great effort of will, got to his feet. His ankle ached a little where Horst had crushed it, and his ribs twinged when he took a deep breath for some unfortunately forgotten reason, but otherwise he felt fine. He patted the pockets of the overcoat he was wearing, and found a pair of dark glasses, some gloves, and a little compact mirror. He put the glasses on. He couldn't see, because it was too dark. He took them back off again.

"Maybe we're related!" said Horst, getting up to roam around the room. He didn’t limp, which made an injury slightly less likely. "Or married, or something. One or the other, both would be awkward. Do you think we look alike?"

Johannes popped open the mirror and examined himself. "We have the same nose," he announced. "But you're not nearly as handsome."

"What? Don't be ridiculous." Horst reached for the mirror, but Johannes pulled it away.

"Covered in acne," he lied. "And you're missing an ear."

There was a blur, and the mirror was suddenly in Horst's hand. He looked at himself for a moment, then moved the mirror first to display one ear, then the other. "You're such a liar, Johannes," he said, fondly. Afterward he looked a little surprised at his own fondness.

"Don't be overfamiliar," said Johannes. "And never play poker, you'd be terrible at it."

"You know, I think you're right," said Horst, back to admiring himself in the mirror. "That jogs a memory..."

Johannes briefly considered retrieving the mirror, and was treated to a vision of having his arm broken or, worse, his hair 'noogied.' He went to inspect the little window instead. Better to pick his battles, especially with someone that fast.

The slit in the door showed a rather truncated view of a corridor. Not a particularly interesting one. It had a few more doors in it, but no people. Johannes wondered if there were guards.

Behind him, Horst made a noise.

"What," said Johannes, not looking away.

"I've got _teeth_ ," said Horst.

"Of course you've got teeth, we all have—” began Johannes, and then stopped as he actually caught sight of Horst, who was pulling one lip up to examine an overlong, pointed canine that looked better designed to puncture than to rip as a normal human canine would.

Fast. Strong. Blood. Teeth. _Vampire_ , whispered a voice in Johannes' mind, and it was like a floodgate had unlocked in his mind. They'd gone into the graveyard together. The crypt. The old woman in the hip bath. Dusk, falling so much earlier than he’d expected. The screams of his brother as Johannes ran away. The snarling thing wearing his brother's body when he'd finally returned.

Yes, brothers after all. Not on especially good terms, though, as far as he could remember. Had they reconciled? It seemed unlikely.

"We all have teeth," he said, slowly, praying to no one in particular that Horst had not experienced a similar rush of recollection. "Here, come and see if you can open this door."

"Isn't it locked?" said Horst. He passed the mirror back to Johannes, then yanked on the door handle. The hinges ripped out of the wall.

Horst gaped, which was probably a good sign. Johannes shrugged. "Shoddy construction," he announced, and led the way out into the corridor.

There weren't any guards. Johannes stared in every direction, trying to logically determine the best way to go.

"This way," whispered Horst, gesturing to the left. "I hear voices."

They walked through what seemed to be a dusty, disused dungeon. Johannes couldn't hear a thing until they walked thirty-eight meters, at which point he caught the faintest murmur of an argument. It got louder as they got closer, until Johannes and Horst stopped at an open doorway and carefully peered in.

The room thus revealed might have served adequately as Johannes' laboratory—he recalled now that he usually had a laboratory. There were bubbling, fizzing liquids, the overpowering smell of sulfur, a storage bin that appeared to be filled with bones, and two men having an argument.

Well. Johannes didn't usually tolerate those in his laboratory. He preferred any visitors to be silent and, if at all possible, dead.

Perhaps the situation could be rectified.

"They could wake up at any moment!" said the slightly taller of the two men. "We should've killed them while we had the chance."

"But it would be such a waste, dear brother," said the slightly shorter one. "With their memories gone, they have no reason to believe they are anything but our most faithful servants. Haven't you ever wanted to have your bath drawn by a Cabal?"

"Not especially," said the taller. "Anyway, that memory serum is untested. I told you, we needed to have a placebo trial and survival testing before we even _consider_ —

The shorter clucked his tongue. "First you want them killed, then you want survival testing..."

"That's not what survival testing means!"

Johannes grew tired of their bickering. "Go bite them," he told Horst.

" _Bite_ them?" said Horst, wide-eyed. "Whyever would I do that?"

"Or rip them limb from limb or something," said Johannes. "Don't worry, it's a perfectly normal human thing to do."

"Is it," said Horst. He gave Johannes a sidelong look. "Well, I suppose I can trust you. Since we have the same nose."

There was something in the way that he said it that made Johannes feel uneasy. He didn't have time to question it before Horst blurred and was gone. There were a pair of screams in the laboratory, and when Johannes stepped in the two men were both tied up with what appeared to be steel girders snatched from a pile of construction debris in the corner. Horst was dusting off his hands.

"You're such an _idiot_ , Rufus," said the taller man.

"What did I do?" complained the shorter man.

Another memory jogged. The men looked _very_ familiar. "Are you _both_ Rufus Maleficarus?" asked Johannes. "He's taller than either of you. And dead. _And_ there was only one of him."

"We've already explained this to you," said the taller man, who as it happened was named Rufus Maleficarus. "We're clones."

"He's forgotten," said the shorter man, who was also named Rufus Maleficarus—Johannes now suffered a shard of recollection that neither he nor his clone-brother had been willing to surrender the name to the other. "It worked!"

"Yes," said Johannes, somewhat nastily. "I have forgotten you, I've forgotten myself, and I've forgotten whatever laws of god and man that would spare your tiny little lives. Horst, I believe I told you to rip them limb from limb."

The taller clone quaked. The shorter one sneered. Horst looked mildly offended.

"Would it kill you," he said, "to say please?"

"I'm sorry?" said Johannes.

"Yes, apologies are also acceptable," said Horst. “I’d like a particularly long one.”

Johannes gave Horst an assessing look. He still seemed… affable. Would he be affable if he remembered their full contentious history?

“Is this a condition for your continued cooperation?” he asked.

“It would be the right thing to do,” said Horst, which was just _typical_ passive-aggressive moralizing from him. It must be genetically encoded.

“I’m sorry,” said Johannes, carefully, “if you felt hurt because I chose to defend myself.”

There was a pause. Horst stared at Johannes. One of the picturesquely bubbling flagons bubbled over and began eating a hole in the floor.

“By kicking you,” clarified Johannes, in case Horst was too dim to make the connection.

“Yes.” Horst folded his arms. “I gathered. You know, I can't believe you. You're so _rude_ , even when you don't know who I am. Common courtesy to common folk, Johannes! I _know_ you sat through the same lectures I did. Mama was very big on seeming nice."

"Ah," said Johannes. He took a step back. "You remember."

"Oh!" said Horst, his eyebrows raised. " _You_ remember?"

"I _told_ you," said the taller Rufus, quite forgotten on the floor. "Survival analysis!"

"I mean," said Johannes, somewhat cagily, "I remember that you're my dearly beloved and respected brother, who I would never betray or lead into harm's—

Horst rolled his eyes. "Come off it, Johannes. You haven't respected me since you were five years old and realized that Krampus didn't actually live under your bed, waiting to eat your toesies."

Johannes sniffed. "The most offensive part of that _lie_ was that you called them 'toesies.'"

Horst put his foot on the wrist of the shorter Rufus, who had worked an arm free from his rebar bonds and was reaching for a container of ominously purple and bubbling liquid. "I was a child," Horst said, not even looking at the Rufus as he yelped. "Children say adorable things! They don't try to _sue_ their brothers for fraud."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have shaken me down for 'Krampus protection' money, then," said Johannes, even as he darted forward to step on the fingers of the taller Rufus, who was reaching for a wrench.

"Christ," said Horst. "We were awful children, weren't we?"

"Yes," said Johannes, and allowed himself a slight smile. "You know, in all the excitement of the past few decades... I'd quite forgotten."

Horst smiled back, pointily. The moment was marred, however, by the shorter Rufus' happy cry of "it worked!"

Later, Rufuses dealt with (though not dismembered), and belongings regained, the brothers Cabal exited what turned out to be a disused gaol in the middle of Surrey.

Dusk was drawing a shroud across the streets, which was lucky because Johannes' memories were still filtering back and he couldn't quite recall if sunlight would consign Horst to dust or not. Better not to experiment until they were sure.

But it was nice, to be outside. The gas streetlights flickered gaily, the smell of residents’ dinners wafted across the lane, and Johannes spotted a bat hunting after insects. Creatures of the night deserved to be free—so long as they were small and didn’t present any inconveniences.

After some discussion, they began walking to a pub where Johannes might purchase sustenance and Horst might find a handy drunk to sup from.

"It occurs to me," said Horst, as they ambled down the lane, "that even with most of your memories gone you still managed to sneak out of doing any of the hard work."

"Don't be silly," said Johannes. "I'm a necromancer. I directed the undead. That's practically the job description."

"I see," said Horst. "And I suppose you don't want to take this opportunity to apologize for the whole undead thing? Properly, with none of that ‘sorry for your feelings’ rubbish. You know, start back up with a fresh slate, all petty grievances and major trespasses forgiven?"

"I really don't know what you're talking about," lied Johannes. "Memory problems, you know."

"Ah," said Horst. "Yes, that's about what I expected."

They walked a little further. In the distance Johannes could hear carousing—he supposed Horst had been able to hear it much longer.

It was odd. As much as he disliked his brother, he was much more comfortable in his company than that of any stranger. Contempt breeds familiarity, wasn't that the quaint English phrase?

"If I _did_ recall," began Johannes, somewhat reluctantly.

Horst perked up. "Yes?"

"If I did," said Johannes, "I could perhaps admit that I'm glad you're my brother."

Horst beamed. "Good enough, thank you."

"For the super-strength and fangs, if nothing else," continued Johannes.

"That's enough," said Horst. He slung an arm over Johannes' shoulders, dragging him into a half-hug even as Johannes tried to struggle away. "Just be quiet for a while, there's a good chap. A few hours at least."


End file.
